‘The Huge Cash Present’ panel discusses President Donald Trump’s determination to tug the plug on California’s high-speed rail undertaking after 16 years of not laying one observe.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy terminated $4 billion in unspent federal funding for California’s high-speed rail undertaking Wednesday, citing round $15 billion spent with no single high-speed observe laid down.
The overall value of the undertaking, estimated to be round $135 billion, might purchase each resident of San Francisco and Los Angeles almost 200 round-trip flights between the 2 California cities, in accordance with an announcement Wednesday from the U.S. Division of Transportation.
“To the law-abiding, tax-paying, hardworking citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, ‘HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE,’” President Donald Trump wrote on Reality Social Wednesday.
TRUMP ADMIN PULLS PLUG ON $4B FOR CALIFORNIA’S ‘TRAIN TO NOWHERE’ PROJECT
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy terminated $4 billion in unspent federal funding for California’s high-speed rail undertaking Wednesday. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs / Getty Photographs)
Final month, Duffy launched a 300-page report performed by the Federal Railroad Administration that examined the undertaking. It discovered missed deadlines, delays, mismanagement, waste, skyrocketing prices, price range shortfalls and overrepresentation of projected ridership.
CONSERVATIVE GROUP CALLS FOR HALT TO FEDERAL FUNDING OF CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL
The report additionally mentioned there’s a $7 billion funding hole to finish a subset of the primary part within the Central Valley from Merced to Bakersfield, often called the Early Working Section (EOS).
California’s high-speed rail undertaking was initially touted as a two-phase system connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco and, later, north to Sacramento and south to San Diego. Since then, the undertaking’s footprint has been diminished considerably from an 800-mile phase to a 171-mile phase.
Timeline:
1981: California works with Japanese companions to discover the feasibility of a high-speed rail hall in Southern California.
1996: California’s Intercity Excessive-Velocity Rail Fee decides that constructing a high-speed rail is feasible. The State Legislature creates the California Excessive-Velocity Rail Authority to supervise the rail undertaking.
2008: California voters approve Proposition 1A, allocating $9 billion to the California Excessive-Velocity Rail Authority for the rail’s planning and building.
2015: California holds an official groundbreaking ceremony in Fresno to mark the start of building of the primary 29-mile phase of the rail.
2019: The Trump administration introduced it was exploring choices to reclaim $2.5 billion in federal funds spent by California on the rail and that it meant to cancel $928 million in federal grants not but paid for the undertaking.
SEC DUFFY TO INVESTIGATE LA’S LONG-DELAYED HIGH-SPEED RAIL PROJECT: ‘WHO GOT THE CASH?’
2023: The Biden administration sends California almost $3.1 billion in federal taxpayer funds for high-speed rail.
February 2024: The undertaking’s first building bundle, which covers 22.5 miles within the Central Valley, reaches “substantial completion.”
June 2024: The 38-mile Palmdale-to-Burbank phase of the rail is environmentally cleared.
Final month, Duffy launched a 300-page report performed by the Federal Railroad Administration that examined the undertaking. (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg / Getty Photographs)
February 2025: President Trump requires an audit of California’s high-speed rail undertaking.
June 2025: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy releases a scathing report exposing what he says is an infeasible high-speed rail undertaking.
July 2025: Duffy declares the termination of $4 billion in unspent federal funding by the Federal Railroad Administration for the undertaking.
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